WHEN electrician Mike Coath was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour he had to face a strange new world.

He was quickly confined to a wheelchair and began counting his future in months rather than years.

He could no longer make calls on his Blackberry phone so tried to change it for a simpler model with larger keys that he could work one-handed.

But the process was more painful than he could have imagined.

Mike, 56, who has a £29-a-month contract with O2, said: “I can’t believe how we’ve been treated.” He still weeps when he recalls how he and his wife Sharon were dealt with by call centre staff.

Sharon, 51, said: “It has had an immense impact on Mike to find that people can be so unkind at a time when he’s perpetually exhausted.

“I know those in call centres don’t intend to be mean. They are simply reading from a script but they don’t listen to what you are saying.” Even after explaining that his illness was terminal Mike was told he would have to undergo security checks lasting three months before being given a new phone.

Since becoming an O2 customer in 2009 Mike, of Chagford, Devon, had missed just one payment, when he was in hospital being diagnosed with the tumour.

“The first thing I said when I phoned was, can we please pay what we owe? After she took the money I asked about exchanging phones,” Mike explained. “She told me that, because I had missed a payment, it was going to be three months before they could help while they do credit checks.

It has had an immense impact on Mike

Sharon

“I told her I might be dead in three months but I got no reaction at all.”

The next day Sharon, a nurse, waited on hold for an hour after ringing the O2 helpline on her mobile. When she finally got through by landline she was put on hold again several times so that the operator could speak to her superviser.

A manager then told her she could not have a new phone until the end of the contract in March 2014 and that even if Mike died in the meantime she would have to carry on making the payments.

Thanks to the Sunday Express, O2 has now proposed replacing Mike’s phone with a cheaper, easy-to-use model.

A spokesman said: “We’ve contacted Mr Coath in response to his complaint and to apologise for the service he and his wife received from us. We have offered Mr Coath the phone he is looking for at no extra cost.”